Rosie Holt: Inside The Mind of a Tory MP - Satire, AI Panic and X-Files Trauma

Good morning, Screen Rats, and welcome to another episode of Television Times Podcast.

Now today, you may hear a slight difference in my voice.

The reason for that is that I am not actually speaking.

This is being generated by AI.

There'll be a bit less preamble today as I am very busy with my Edinburgh show prep, so much so that I can't even be bothered to speak into an actual microphone.

Today's guest is the brilliant comedian, author and satirist, Rosie Holt.

I saw Rosie last year at The Fringe.

After watching those hilarious fake interviews she did as her Tory MP character, which blew up in and around Partygate.

She is now promoting her book, Why We Were Right, which is out now, so go and buy a copy right away.

It was a joy to talk to her, so here she is, the brilliant, funny and talented Rosie Holt.

Wow, that guy really isn't me, is he?

Oh, Mr.

AI.

Nothing like me, I don't think, a little bit, very clever.

But he didn't have the emphatic-ness that I need around such a great guest as Rosie Holt, so here she is.

This is me talking to the brilliant Rosie Holt.

That is my voice.

AI, more like a yoplod.

Welcome to Television Times, a weekly podcast with your host me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

I saw your show last year at the Fringe.

That's Polytainment and I enjoyed that a lot.

That was a lot of fun.

Oh, thank you.

And you're going back up with a new show with the same title as your book, I believe.

Yes, so I'm only doing one week and it's just going to be, I'm going to get someone to interview my character about the book.

So it's going to be quite a silly, simple show.

That's the idea.

Almost like a podcast.

Almost like a podcast.

I sort of was trying to work out when I first saw you, the Tory MP character.

And in my mind, that's the funny thing.

Like you sort of remember things wrongly.

I thought originally that you were like on Politics Live or something as a real MP and that they mistook you like they did the cab driver or someone like that.

And I thought, oh, wow, that's amazing.

Yeah.

And I realized, oh, actually, no, that's not what happened.

But in my mind, that's exactly.

That's a lie.

That didn't happen.

Yeah.

But in my mind, it definitely happened.

Yeah.

No, it was all kind of on internet.

But it's funny because even my friend said to me, she said, oh, that's so great that you're on the newsagents.

I said, I wasn't.

I just inserted myself into some footage.

Was it always a nameless character?

No.

Well, the MP, I didn't give a name, but she's now got my name just because I used to put up sketches and I'd put MP says, which I don't know, she wasn't in a party in Lockdown.

And people would, because people would think it was real, they confused me with the character.

So I'd get some messages saying, Rosie Holt must reside and all this kind of thing.

So I kind of went, oh, great, she's got my name.

It's nothing I can do about that now.

That's amazing.

I think a lot of it is because they went through so many MPs and so many different leaders that you didn't really know who anyone was anyway, like who's the education minister?

I don't know.

No idea.

It's that one that stuck her fingers up and then it wasn't.

Yeah, especially during the pandemic, you kept getting even more ridiculous backpensher MPs you'd never heard of saying something incredibly stupid.

A bit like now.

She was easy to fit in.

Yeah.

I went through a period of really hating quite a lot of them and they all got government jobs.

And now it's just like the dregs are now the ones on television.

It's like, oh, that guy, you've got him.

He's the one now spewing all the stuff on Question Time or whatever.

They've really got no one left, which is really, really funny.

I think it's the end of days for them.

Famous last words, sort of hoping for an election.

No, I think so.

They're out.

Are you active in this election cycle?

Are you doing lots of stuff?

So I've been on tour and I've just finished and my diary seems to be filling up quite quickly just due to the election.

And it is kind of a weird, crazy moment where the kind of fate of the country aside, I'm going, right, I've got this character who this is her time to shine really.

Yeah.

So yeah, she needs to go on the campaign trail.

That's great.

I can't wait.

Going to Clacton.

Yes.

No, she'll ban milkshakes.

No milkshakes.

You can see me speak, but don't bring any milky drinks.

Well, comedy, when I look back on it, it's sort of almost musical at the beginning.

Were you actually a singer?

Because you went to Lambda, right?

I went to Lambda.

So when I started doing stand-up, I had a ukulele and sang stupid songs about sex.

But that didn't last that long.

I started it basically with that because I wanted to do stand-up, and I wasn't quite brave enough to do it just as me.

So I thought I'd do it with an instrument.

But then after, I think for about a year or so, I ditched the instrument and just did it as me.

Right, yeah.

Because I was looking at some of those old videos and I've been watching this documentary on called Camden.

And there's like videos of Dua Lipa about 10 years ago in a flat in Camden singing into a mic onto YouTube.

And then I saw yours the next day and I thought, wow, YouTube really did work for some people.

I am so like Dua Lipa.

Very similar.

It's like the satirical Dua Lipa.

There are similarities, there's definitely similarities.

But you did, a friend of mine, Kev F Sutherland, runs those sitcom trials and you did one of those, didn't you, back in the day?

Yes, I did one of those, yeah.

Yeah, I won the sitcom trials, which was sort of a writing spin-off of So You Think You're Funny.

Yeah.

That was very fun.

Yeah, he's great.

I haven't seen him for ages.

Election talk.

That's what I'm really enjoying at the moment.

I had a friend of mine ask me, are you following the election?

And I was like, well, yeah, I'm following.

I don't follow sport, I'm not a sporty person.

So I follow politics.

I think people would follow sport or music or something like that.

And I just can't get enough of it.

And what I'm really enjoying at the moment is there's these Times Radio exit interviews, I think Matt Cholley's doing, and he's got all the MPs just like, you know, like it usually after the election, there may be there'll be some books and some stuff will come out.

They're already spilling the beans, like one by one, just saying whatever they want.

It's amazing.

God, I need to start listening to them.

Yeah, I think there's about 20 so far.

And people are just like, from the cabinet, are just going, yep, it was bonkers.

Liz Truss was a lunatic.

Boris Johnson was a liar.

It's like, you know you're still in power, right?

Yeah.

I'm really enjoying this.

Rishi Sunak's in trouble because he left E-Day early.

Yeah, I saw that.

There's this great picture of all the world leaders and David Cameron.

Because Rishi left to go and do an interview with ITV News.

Yeah, the most important news channel of all.

Do you think Cameron could come back, make a little comeback, do a sort of Nixon?

No, no, I hope not.

So who's your money on as the new leader?

The new Tory leader.

They keep using the word techie.

She is techie.

She's always in every interview, she goes, sorry, are you doing those very aggressive?

Or she'll say, she'll say, I don't, no, I don't, I don't see why you ask that.

If you're going to ask things like that, then I'm not going to answer.

She's got, she's like, actually, Rishi is very defensive, isn't he?

Why are you asking me that?

She's just one step further.

Yeah, I don't know why he wants, I still can't work out why, I've heard a few people say, like it is weird that he is the prime minister because he keeps forgetting, he seems to sort of be pitching himself as the thing he actually is, which is hilarious, because he's so bad at it.

What I'm really enjoying is he just, it looks like he believes he wants to win, but I can't believe he does because my favorite story I've heard so far was that somebody hacked the Peloton, you know, after the day he announced the election, he said something like, they asked him, how'd you start your day?

And he said, I get on my bike and I do my Peloton and I do that for an hour every morning at six o'clock.

So somebody hacked his Peloton account.

I don't know if this is true, but this is what I've heard, the day after he announced the election, he did go on his Peloton for an hour and he cycled up the Pacific Highway in LA.

Now I hope that's true, because that's amazing.

So he's already planning to go to California.

I like the idea of it.

I don't know if it is true.

It's a great urban myth if it isn't.

Yeah, well, I think he is certainly, I mean, there is a whole rumor, isn't he?

The reason why he's called it now is so that if he fails, he can get his children into school in California for the time for the new school term.

It'd be really funny.

He says he's going to stay on, but I just don't believe it.

But why would he want to do it?

If he had that kind of money, why would you want to run the country?

Because it's the worst job in the world.

Even good prime ministers like Gordon Brown.

The power.

The power.

The power.

The power.

But I don't think it's out of, I don't think he's got any compassion or interest in the people.

So I think it's just something to do for him.

It's very strange.

Did you watch the debate?

Yeah, I did.

Yeah, me too.

I thought they were both very bitchy.

Very bitchy with each other.

Yeah, he was the son of a tool maker and the son of a pharmacist.

That's all I remember.

Don't remember anything else.

Yeah, only one could survive.

Rosie, your book is called Why We Were Right, and it comes out, I believe, June 20th, is that right?

Yeah, so Why We Were Right, it's written by my Tory MP, and it goes through all the scandals of the last few years and explains why actually they're really good things, and the Tory party did a wonderful job.

So it's things like why we were right to party through lockdown, why we were right to get Brexit done.

It was really fun to write.

It's very silly, but also it's a well-researched silliness.

It's basically a catalogue of Tory excuses, which is what my character is all about.

Have you always had that release date or was it pushed for the election or was it all just a happy accident?

No, it got pushed forward.

No, no, no, this is again why this week's been a bit mad.

It was supposed to be released sort of a month later, and it's been pushed a month forward because of the election.

It's all good because it all lines up perfectly with Edinburgh for you, so that's quite nice.

Well, Edinburgh is, yeah, it's kind of really just, it's for the book.

It's a book tour show.

Yeah.

Television Times format questions.

Which TV character do you feel the most affinity with?

Oh, what TV character do?

Oh, I don't know about now, but I used to, I think one of the reasons why I liked Chuck so much, have you seen Chuck?

Chuck, yeah, yeah, the American TV show.

The TV show about this guy who is a, like his life hasn't really worked out and he's working in a crappy store.

Then he gets all these sort of government secrets downloaded into his brain, at least in the first series, later on it turns out he's kind of, and then he kind of has to be protected and used and all that kind of thing.

And I think what I liked so much about that show, I think I kind of gave up on it in about season four because later they, I mean, they have to sort of take it so suddenly he does have the skills.

But in the first series, he's just sort of is important, but also quite rubbish at everything, but also clever and working in a crappy job.

And I found that really resonated with me when I was watching it.

When I was watching it, I was doing a series of really shit jobs.

And of course, you like to feel like, where's my life's gone wrong somewhere?

This is not what I was supposed to be doing.

And I think it really catches that feeling of how your life hasn't really panned out how you thought it would.

And also the kind of terror of feeling a bit out of your depth and a bit inept about things.

That's a great answer.

Yeah.

I do remember, Chuck, I remember seeing it 2007 started.

So when I started this podcast, the alternative idea I had was a podcast about people's previous shit jobs, because that was one that I wanted to cover.

I kind of want to sideswipe that into this podcast eventually, but you brought that up.

So what is the worst job you ever had?

I've done lots of rubbish jobs.

I think the worst one I've ever had, I didn't have it for very long at all.

In fact, I only did it for a few days, but it was so awful.

And my job agency said, look, go to this company.

They said, you might have to do a few difficult phone calls, but not many.

And I said, great.

So I went in and it looked deceptively nice.

Like it was like a warehouse type building.

There were dogs allowed in the office, which to me seemed, wow, what a great place to work.

People were, they were wearing sort of casually dressed.

I thought, God, this is a cool place.

And they sat me down and they gave me a list.

And basically it was a debt company, a loan company, sorry.

And my job was to ring up all the people who owed money and I had to tell them that we were now going to be charging them huge amounts of interest if they didn't cough up.

Did you ethically walk away?

I was so depressed.

I was like, this is horrible.

And you'd get people ring up and I get sort of sweet old ladies who were going, well, I haven't paid it back because you see my husband's been in a hospital.

And so I've been spending all my time going to visit him.

And all they do is they give you just a script and they go, okay, well, we're finding you this much money.

It was so awful.

And it was relentless.

So it's all I was doing.

I was doing with this other girl.

And after the first day, she went, I can never come back.

This is, she looked traumatized for the whole day.

And I think I only asked it a few days.

I found it so unpleasant.

So I think that was my least favorite.

Short but memorable.

Short but memorable.

It reminds me of one I did about three hours in.

That was at college.

I had lots of jobs like delivering pizza, working in pubs, all that stuff.

But for one afternoon, I got a new job and I didn't really know what it was.

It's one of those ones that was advertised in a strange way.

I was in an office and there was like, I realized after a minute that it was a private parking enforcement company, whatever.

You want to put the clamps on cars and stuff.

Oh yeah.

And I was to sort of, it was my job to sort of, someone would phone in and say they've seen a car illegally parked and then I would have to communicate with the people that go and put the clamps on.

And I remember sort of at lunchtime, I'd moved my bike, my bicycle around the back so I could just say I was going for lunch and then just cycle away at speed because I knew I couldn't do it.

I wouldn't do it because it was horrible.

Oh, so unpleasant.

I hate things like that.

Let's try this one, just see if anything jumps out.

What's your favorite jingle?

I don't know if it was a jingle.

I remember there was a really great TV show called Round the Twist.

Do you remember that?

I've heard of it, yeah.

So it was a great children's TV show.

It was based on the Paul Jennings short stories, all these sort of really crazy, and it had this tune that went, have you ever, ever felt like this when strange things happen?

Are you going round the twist?

It wasn't really a jingle, it was the song, but it was great.

Little Miss Spider, it was something like that.

Had a spider inside her.

Oh, hello.

It's funny what kids end up singing, because my wife has shown adverts to our kids from her childhood, and they're Canadian, she's Canadian.

So she'll show some advert, and then my kids are just walking around going, night bright, light bright, did-did it, and it's an ad from, I guess, the 80s.

And they're singing it, or they'll sing like what they called like car compare sites that advertise during Children's TV on Channel 5 in the morning.

It's very strange.

Mine's a mango and like things like that.

Oh yeah, I'm bongo, I'm bongo, they call it.

Bongo, they drink it in the congo, they nip a took a nip a cut a guava and a mango.

After that, no idea.

Or do you remember the Puddington Peas?

That was a good one.

No, I don't, what's that?

Down at the bottom of the garden, it's the Puddington Peas, the Puddington Peas.

I don't know that one, Rosie.

I'll check that one out afterwards.

You're a funny person.

What's the funniest thing you ever saw on TV?

Funny thing I've ever saw on TV.

So when I was, I mean, things I used to really adore, I loved Spaced in Green Wing in my 20s.

That was what I spaced in Green Wing, made me laugh so much.

I thought it was so good.

I like, I mean, I don't know, it's such a, that question could encapsulate so many things, couldn't it?

Changes, yeah.

I mean, at the moment it's, I think you should leave.

Have you seen that TV show?

Yeah, Tim.

Tim Robinson.

Yeah, I really enjoy that.

And Staff Let's Flats.

Yes.

I used to, when I was a teenager, me and my brother discovered Adam and Joe, the Adam and Joe show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We thought this was so brilliant.

And it was the TV show we were allowed to stay up for sometimes.

Really?

Parents weren't strict, but they were quite strict about going to bed.

They'd send us to bed really early.

I went to bed earlier than all of my friends.

I think it's because I'm one of five.

What time are you going to bed at what age?

Because I worry about that with my kids.

Am I letting them stay up too late or are they going to bed too early?

I think it's been like nine.

Like it's a teenager.

It's been early.

That sounds about right.

I think it's because, I don't know, when you're 16, 17, you don't want to go to bed at nine.

Oh, I left home at 16, so I stayed up till 5 a.m., but yeah, I guess that's different.

We used to watch Adam and Jo's show, and we found that so funny.

New things like Bad Dad, and they used to get little figurines and reenact films.

I remember they did one for Saper and Private Ryan, and they went, how come there are just Americans here?

And they went, don't be silly.

Everyone knows the Americans won the war.

And now Joe Cornish is a film director.

It's amazing how that's all panned out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What time was that on then?

Because I don't know if I saw it.

I guess it would have been scheduled TV because there wasn't any other way of watching it, right?

It was on pretty late.

It was on like at 10 or 11 or something like that.

Yeah, did you ever see the Japanese one they did?

They did one for Fuji TV, which was fantastic.

It would have been in the early 2000s, maybe 2002 or 2003.

It was like Adam and Joe Go Tokyo.

It was really good.

I know, that sounds great.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

I spent some time in Japan around that time and they were on Japanese TV, which blew my mind.

For Adam and Joe on the telly, it was weird.

They have some, oh, that's something weird.

I don't know, people might not even know this.

I'll just say, in Japan, when they transmit a TV show, it's dual language.

There's a button on the remote control where you can have like the original languages in French or whatever it's just showing.

And then you press another one and it's dubbed and you can choose.

And that was 20 years ago.

Always ahead.

So in your, I don't know, your Tory MP couldn't go into a reality TV show, but would you consider going into a reality TV show?

And if so, which one would you like to do?

I don't think so.

On the one hand, you know, you strictly come dancing, you think, great, but I am such a bad dancer.

Which my boyfriend goes, you're not a bad dancer.

I'm not a bad dancer when it's sort of just, you know, when there's music playing, I've got rhythm.

But I can't learn moves at all.

I find learning dance moves impossible.

The, my brain treats dance moves the same way as when I'm trying to work out a mathematical equation.

I'm also very bad at math.

I can't retain any of the knowledge in my head.

When I was at drama school, it took me so long to learn any dance moves and it was hell.

So it's really sad because although I love the idea of doing Strictly and dancing and wearing a sparking costume, I would be so bad and I know I'd hate it.

And I feel like, do you remember when Rachel Riley from Countdown, she was on it.

She just wasn't a good dancer.

And I really felt for her because I felt that's exactly what I'd be like.

She was really trying and every week the judges would just sort of go, well, this was rubbish and this was rubbish.

And I thought, God, doing that on national TV.

She looks like someone that would be able to dance.

She just has that vibe, maybe.

It's because she's pretty.

It's what you think, Steve.

She's pretty.

But what you did on stage on your last Edinburgh show was in a way, there was so much choreography with like changing clothes and going over the, how do you remember all of that then?

There are kind of moves, right?

But that's, yeah, that's different.

I think it's something about, I don't know, something about actual dance moves.

I find it impossible.

Otherwise, I don't think I do any of those reality TV shows.

Maybe a little one if I was really hard done by and it didn't, you know what?

I do Celebrity Bake Off.

I do that.

Or like the cooking ones.

The cooking ones.

So many of them.

All the cooking ones.

This is cake.

Make a Tory manifesto that's a cake.

Celebrity MasterChef.

Do you watch much reality TV?

Cause just a recent convert really myself to like traitors and things, good ones like that.

No, I don't.

I used to watch Love Island, but then I stopped watching that.

I realized I was wasting so much time watching it.

And I thought, but no, I'm not really a reality TV watcher.

Yeah, me and my wife feel the same about maths.

We watched Maths Australia and we got to stop.

We've got to stop.

It's such trash.

It's a waste of our time.

Maths Australia, what's that?

Married at First Sight Australia.

That was like maths.

I thought, thanks for doing some really intelligent maths reality TV show.

Just some ditzy people doing algebra.

It's a terrible, terrible show and nobody should watch it, but I can't stop, because it's just so entertainingly terrible.

It's the worst show in the world.

I know, sometimes they're really addictive.

They are, because by the time we actually go to bed, it's like, got kids and stuff, it's like, what are we gonna watch?

And at the moment, I'll be honest, I don't mind saying it, because I think it's still good.

We're just watching Friends.

We're just re-watching Friends, fuck it.

It is good.

It's fun, it's comfortable, it's not as bad as they say.

It's actually pretty good.

Apart from season seven, which is NAF.

Season seven is terrible.

Season seven, I remember watching it at the time and going, this is devoid of jokes.

There'd just be episode upon episode without any jokes.

They made Chandler weak.

They made him into a sort of cook-hold and he lost all his sort of, you know, funniness.

He just became, just kind of, you know, please Monica, can I?

And it was just like, can we stop talking about weddings?

I mean, I'm married and I don't even, marriage is so naff, it was naff then, it's naff now.

Yeah, yeah, it's rubbish.

But then I did really wonder how the sort of, you know, Chandler's dad being, you know, a woman playing a man, I wondered how that was all gonna play out.

It's actually still very funny.

Yeah.

Because it's done, there's no hate in there.

It's just hilarious, it's mad what they did.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'm talking about what I watch.

Do you wanna pick a number or shall I just grab one?

Just grab one.

Okay, a boring TV show that everyone else seems to like.

So I can't get on board.

I don't know if they're boring, but I can't get on board with True Crime at all.

I know that's a really big thing.

People love True Crime documentaries and things like that.

And I don't like it.

It's not for me.

No, it's very dark, isn't it?

It's not, I mean, I like dark stuff.

I think I just find it a bit, it's just a bit unsavoury.

I can't get on board with it.

Especially if it's like a dead kid or something, or a woman, it's always a woman disappearing in the woods, or a kid does something awful, the worst thing you can imagine.

Why do you want to watch that?

I mean, I can't watch things for kids in, but I listen to tons of podcasts, but they're all mostly comedy or political.

And the idea of listening to a True Crime podcast is like, what?

I don't listen to any of those either.

It is the most popular format, isn't it?

Yeah, completely.

It is, it's so popular, I don't get it.

Nature documentaries, I always feel like I should.

I think if I watch them, I probably would enjoy them, but I never do.

I don't think I've seen any David Attenborough, isn't that awful?

No, I mean, either.

It's so boring.

I mean, I like the idea of it and I'm glad they're making them and it's very important work.

I'm like, no, I can't re-watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

You want to be entertained.

I just don't, yeah.

And I know exactly what you mean, but you go around other people's houses and they have them on and it's kind of interesting, right?

You sort of, it's usually got a voiceover of Morgan Freeman or something.

And it's interesting, but I wouldn't choose it if it was on like, oh, let's sit down and watch that.

No more than I would watch a soap opera, which I can't believe people watch either.

I don't really get that.

I don't really understand that.

No, also, because it's like a story with nothing ever getting resolved.

It's too frustrating.

Yeah, it's the opposite of a limited season, which is something I love.

I like to know it's going to end and that's it.

Yeah.

When I was a kid, I used to watch EastEnders for a bit.

And then I thought this is so relentlessly depressing.

No one is allowed to be happy.

It's like Jacob's Ladder in that there's all these people trapped in this hellish world with no end.

And you know that in EastEnders, I mean, I have watched it for sort of 25 years, but there'd always be someone going, this is the best Christmas I've ever had.

I'm so happy.

And there's someone coming and going, your husband's been screwing your sister.

And they'd be like, why?

It was like that all the time.

Couldn't cope with it.

Maybe they should end EastEnders and they could end it like the end of Lost.

And actually they've all just been in purgatory because there's so many-

Yeah, I think they are.

I think they're all in purgatory.

I'm gonna write something like that where EastEnders find out they're actually all in purgatory.

I thought I was just in a soap, but actually I'm in purgatory after having a bad time at the Vietnam War.

So, a TV show that you would erase from history, you press the button, men in black, everybody forgets it, it never happened, and one you'd bring back from the dead.

I would erase, I mean, really, it's just for me, because probably no one remembers it anyway.

There's this children's show called Samson Slugs.

I only used to watch it because it would coincide with when I'd come back from school and it would be on.

And it was about this boy who had a collection of slugs and he'd use it to torment his teacher.

And it was so cruel.

And then I think in the final episode, the teacher ends up moving next door to him.

His niece is coming to stay and she joins up with Samson and they release, and even though the teacher's really nice to his niece, but she teams up with Samson and they release slugs into his room and it makes him go mad.

And he goes around the streets of London being completely mad because he's lost it.

And I thought it was such a horrible program and I thought Samson was horrible.

And I'd like that to be erased.

That sounds awful.

Yeah, it was terrible.

So what's the TV show that you would bring back?

I think I would bring back the cartoon, Dungeons and Dragons, because I don't know if you've ever watched that as a kid.

Well, it was great.

It was based on the board game.

It was these kids who go to fairground, the fairground ride Dungeons and Dragons and gets transported to an alternative world full of Dungeons and Dragons.

And it was great.

But it got canceled or ended and they never got home as a result.

They were stuck in that world.

And often, you know, I could say lots of really great series I loved that I want back, but actually too often there's really great series and then they just get worse as they're left on for too long.

What you want is to bring back something where you never found out what happened.

That, I don't know, those kids are still there.

Their parents are probably worrying where they are.

So I'd like that to be brought back so we can solve it.

So you're one of those people that if you turn around three times that way, you need to turn back?

No, I just don't like, I don't know what's gonna happen.

Like the unfinished story.

Well, I could tell you about 10 films you shouldn't watch then, because there's been so many films that you watch.

And then like, I love, I sort of like the idea of this.

It's a bit dark, I guess, but end of world movies where there's a nuclear explosion or there's a volcano going over there.

But you never see it.

And you just know something's happening and it just goes to black and people are driving away from a dust cloud and you never find out.

Nothing worse, in my opinion.

They just leave you hanging.

I don't mind that.

I like those endings where it's like, oh, what really happened?

But a TV show where it's all geared towards oh, will these kids ever get back home?

And then you never know because it gets canceled.

Awful.

What's the TV show that scared you the most?

Do you like scary things or?

Yeah, I do like scary things.

The TV show scared me the most, I think was the X-Files TV show.

There was an episode where this mother is taking her daughter into a supermarket and the daughter's got this little doll and she goes, mommy, I don't like it, I wanna go.

She goes, come on, we gotta be quick, gotta be quick, cause I've gotta get stuff.

And she goes, no, I wanna go home.

And she goes, please, I just need to get some groceries.

And then she goes, I wanna go home and the doll opens its eyes and then everybody in the supermarket starts going, oh, and like tearing out their eyes and there's a little blood pouring in their eyes.

And that freaked me out.

That was the TV show that freaked me out.

That is horrific, I do not remember that.

And I saw all of them, you have to re-watch that.

Yeah, that was one of the nastier ones, yeah.

That reminds me of when I probably was too young when I saw, you've seen the film Poltergeist?

Yes.

The original one.

And the guy, the dad is in the mirror and he starts pulling at his face and then next thing he's pulling the flesh and it's all going in the sink.

I saw that when I was like 12 or 13 or something.

Way too young.

Another one, because I'm aware that I keep mentioning things when I was young, that really scared me is the American Horror Story, of which there are so many series of in America.

There's the second, I don't know if you've seen the second one, which is actually amazing, but she's set in an asylum and it's got some incredible cast of like Chloe Savani, Joseph Fiennes, the guy, the farmer from Babe, who's playing this horrible character.

Oh yeah, I see his face.

Jessica Lang, he's in all of them.

It's really brilliant.

It's so scary, because the other ones are scary, but they're all a bit kind of silly.

This one is so scary.

It's horrible asylum, where they treat all the patients appallingly, but also there's kind of experiments being done on unsuspecting patients.

Really freaked me out.

That's really scary.

That is horrible.

I think people have an innate fear, don't they, that you could go mad and you could be taken away.

It's like from childhood.

If I go mad, will they put me in a padded cell?

And you actually, there's a sort of deep feeling that I think, isn't it, if you do think you're mad, you're not, but there are moments, especially if you're in, I'm sure what you do, putting on masks and pretending to be other people.

Sometimes you might go, am I nuts?

Am I self-centered lunatic?

So my great grandmother, my great grandmother was put in an asylum by my great grandfather because she, he wanted to move the mistress into the house and she said no.

So he got her committed to an asylum because back then you could, you could just say, I'll pay you a load of money.

The husband could just...

My wife is mad.

And she was in there for seven years until my grandfather broke her out.

She wasn't mad.

And it's dark.

And also, I mean, back then, I don't think they would have been very nice.

No, horrid.

What year are we talking?

What years are we talking, do you think?

I'm terrible at dates.

I'm no good at maths, nevermind, forget it.

Yeah, my great grandmother, so a while ago.

A while ago.

Have you seen that show Archie?

I spoke to the director of that, Paul Williams, Cary Grant biopic TV show.

Oh, no, I've never seen it.

And I should, because I love Cary Grant.

But I think that's why I haven't seen it.

It's amazing.

And I will tell you that you'll have an affinity with it for that story you just told me, because that is what happened to his mother.

What happened to his mom is awful.

It's terrible.

Really, really awful.

Yeah, it's a tragic, tragic show.

Yeah, that is very, very dark.

That's the dark end.

So if we put this out in like, how about June the 26th?

That's around just after your book comes out.

Just talk about when it comes out, people could buy the book.

Yeah, yeah.

Come and see my show at Edinburgh.

What are you doing after Edinburgh?

Oh, I have no idea.

No idea.

Panicking, it's just abyss.

You can become an actual Tory MP, because they need them.

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'll do.

All right, Rosie, thanks for coming on Television Times.

Keep having me.

That was Rosie Holt on the Television Times, but no, it's actually me, it's not AI.

That was Rosie, that was great.

We had a bad connection, but we managed to pull it out the bag at the last minute.

It's a bit of a short one, but I think you'll agree.

There's some good old moments in there.

Bit of gold, bit of gold all over the place.

Now for today's outro track.

Now, because this one is all about the Tories and her being a Tory MP, a parody of one, and also the election going on, I thought it might be fun to put a song on here from 30 years ago.

It's a song called A Road to Recovery.

Now it is an eight-track recording, so don't get too excited, but just listen out for the lyrics.

The lyrics, they're still poignant.

Every single word could be written about today.

It's called Road to Recovery.

I wrote it in 1994 and I must have recorded it somehow.

So here it is.

This is that song written by me a long time ago.

Go.

Wow, things never change.

That song could be written about Brexit.

It could be written about a million things.

And I think it shows that my anti-conservative credentials are fully intact.

There you go, song from 30 years ago.

Who would have thought I could even say that out loud?

Anyway, that was The Road to Recovery, and this was Television Times Podcast, featuring the brilliant Rosie Holt.

We'll be back again next week with another great guest.

Thanks for listening, and bye for now.